Brazzil

An ambush on April 16, 2009, carried out by agents of a private security company left seven rural workers wounded on the Espírito Santo Ranch in the municipality of Xinguara, Pará, in the North of Brazil. Armed with high-powered weapons, the private security force shot at members of the MST (Movement of the Landless Rural Workers) who since February have been encamped in the area.

Every politician has one instinct for power and another for history. Desiring political strength to guarantee a place in history, and, for this reason, seeking votes from current voters with an eye towards the future readers of his country's history. He keeps an eye on both his mandate and his biography.

This is the story of a "victim" of sorts, in the bawdy, colorful, often tragically alluring bohemian district of Lapa, in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the home of the Malandro. The vagabundo. Of Samba, of the infamous Beco do Rato (mouth of the rat), of beauty, of violence, vice and viscerata, camaraderie, squalor, crime, euphoria, piss, sex, marijuana and mania. 

Brazil is home to one-third of the world's rainforest and half of the Amazon. Between its vast rainforests and bodies of water, Brazil hit the planet's natural resource jackpot, although both are rapidly disappearing habitats. Despite its ecological wealth, Brazil has stated that international climate change is a burden that should be shouldered by both the developed and developing worlds.

Prejudice plays major role in lack of motivation in most schools in Brazil, this is what reveals an unprecedented research released June 17th, by Fundação Instituto de Pesquisas Econômicas - FIPE (Economic Research Institute Foundation). Following interviews with over 18,500 students, parents, teachers, principals and school staff from 501 public schools in Brazil, the study revealed that 99.3% of the people admit having some type of prejudice varying from ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, or geographic discrimination.

I visited the Ceasa market in São Paulo recently and was struck by the variety of fish and seafood on display. There were all kinds of species, some familiar, like tuna and swordfish, others with strange Indian names - tainha, tucunaré, pacu, pirarucu and curimbatá, along with shrimps, octopus, eels, crabs and squid. 

Only two letters separate "pre-salt" from "pre-school," but between these two options is an immense separation for the future of Brazil. Diverse economic resources of Brazil have been presented, each in its own epoch, as the road for national progress and personal emancipation of the Brazilians: sugar; gold, coffee, rubber, industry.

One of the good effects of Bolsa Família (BOAsa fumMEElia) - a monthly allowance given the very poor by the Brazilian government -  besides helping the poor, was to get the impoverished in big cities like São Paulo to go back to their places of origin, and keep people in the disadvantaged regions from coming to São Paulo.  

"In Brazil a woman gets hit or beaten up every 15 seconds. As long as the hitting or beating up takes place at home, people think it is not that serious." Those are the words of a beautiful judge, Vanessa Ribeiro Mateus, who just took office as head of São Paulo State's judicial branch in charge of domestic violence against women.